Cover Image Courtesy: Intel Extreme Masters
The second day of the New Challengers Stage is in full swing after the first day turned out to be quite a celebration for the Asian teams. Renegades and Tyloo went on to win both their matches as ViCi stunned everyone by taking down Fnatic, the highest seeded team at the event. Though ViCi could not secure a second win against NRG, the damage had been done.
The second day has already started, with lots of exciting matches lined-up to be played throughout the day but the only thing that has the whole of Asia shouting on top of their lungs is ViCi taking down Cloud9 on Inferno by a score of ‘16-6’. Now just one more win away from qualifying onto the New Legends Stage.
Continued Aggression
ViCi Gaming after taking down Fnatic was the talk of the town mostly because they had spoiled pickems for a lot of users. And although the team went on to lose to NRG they were unstoppable today against Cloud9.
Freeman and Kaze finally showing what they can do, and Auman and Zhoking being way more consistent than they ever were. The stars seems to have finally aligned.
— Bleh (@OfficialBleh) February 14, 2019
Taking the fight on Inferno, a map on which ViCi has proved its prowess earlier as well, taking down North twice on Inferno during their face off in the IEM Katowice 2019 – Third Place Play-In. This time around ViCi have managed to do it again, silencing everyone as they were clearly the better team tonight.
The way ViCi played the CT-side today was pitch perfect. They were making Cloud9 work so hard to get an entry into the bomb sites and the toughest blow for Cloud9 was that they were not able to trade positively. Both Autimatic and Rush were struggling a lot throughout the game when it came to trading off with the opposition which was a key reason as to why ViCi were able to run over them.
After the switch, the hope of making a comeback into the game was quickly crushed as Cloud9 lost 4 rounds in a row after claiming the pistol round. The aggression by ViCi along with their well-timed executes gave them the edge to plan successfully and take proper control of the site. The crossfire setups were also on point and delivered every time Cloud9 tried a retake.
Freeman stepped up to take the responsibility off the shoulders of Advent and Zhoking as Kaze went beast mode on C9. Both of them shared the highest frags for the game sitting with a commendable 22 kills with a rating of 1.69 and 1.76, respectively.
Hope to see ViCi Gaming continue ahead winning in a similar fashion. Now just one win away from qualifying on to the next stage, it will be really exciting to see the underdog tale turning into a reality.